SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Victor Anthony was heading south toward his Fairburn home after a long day of work when he smelled smoke.
“I saw a little fire up on the passenger side next to the door. So naturally, I tried to put it out first with my hat. But at the same time trying to move across multiple lanes of traffic to get off safely,” Anthony told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
It was only seconds after he pulled over just before the 17th Street Bridge that the vehicle was overtaken by fire.
“Five to 10 seconds longer, I wouldn’t have made it,” he said.
Put the VIN of his low mileage 2021 Mercedes Benz 450 GLS in the NHTSA recall search, and there are no open recalls on the car.
The fire happened in March 2025.
That’s when Anthony first reached out to Mercedes and filed a complaint with federal regulators.
In May, Mercedes sent an inspector to examine the vehicle. Anthony says he has not heard a word from the automaker since.
“After they did the inspection, no communication at all,” Anthony said.
Then he saw our February Channel 2 Action News investigation into other Mercedes SUV owners with similar fires.
“Until somebody dies, I guess that’s what it’s going to take before they make the repair on it,” Anthony said.
Cobb County resident Amy Henry had been behind the wheel pulling into her doctor’s office just minutes before the fire erupted in her 2017 Mercedes 450 GLS.
“There was no warning,” Henry said. “No engine light went on when I was driving, nothing, no indication that it would just explode.”
Since then, Henry has been hunting for answers through an investigation of her own.
Henry reported the fire to police, to government regulators and even to Mercedes-Benz, who sent out an investigator to review the incident.
Nearly six months after the explosion, Mercedes-Benz wrote to Henry, saying that her car did not suffer from product defect or malfunction.
A Mercedes spokesperson told Channel 2 Action News Investigates that they initiated a thorough review including an inspection of Henry’s vehicle and did not find a defect.
Channel 2 Investigates checked National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records for cases like what happened to Henry and Anthony’s vehicles.
While there is a recall for potential fire danger for 2021 to 2024 Mercedes SUVs, the component responsible isn’t in Henry’s 2017 model. And there is no indication of a recall or recall repair on Anthony’s CARFAX report.
Instead, we found over two dozen other drivers of similar model Mercedes SUVs with similar stories. A Washington family said their vehicle caught fire after pulling into the garage, causing a total loss on their house.
It was the same model and year as Henry’s 2017 GLS 450.
The owner of another car, a 2016 350, said they were driving in the street when suddenly the front of the car lit on fire. They stopped, but they had almost no time to escape.
Michael Brooks from the Center for Auto Safety says drivers in these situations need to file a safety complaint with NHTSA.
“It is important for consumers to report it to the federal government so that they can at least have a head start and a heads up that there might be a problem with those vehicles and they can start looking at it.”
Anthony says he repeatedly tried to get answers from Mercedes and even walked into the lobby of their USA headquarters in Sandy Springs asking for help.
Mercedes Benz USA has not responded to Channel 2 Action News request for comment.
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